A Night to See the Stars Actually Wearing Clothes

LAS VEGAS, Jan. 8 - The actress known as Tyla Wynn took to the stage late Saturday night to accept an X-rated-film award, the pornography version of an Oscar. The category was excellence in a multiperson sex scene.

Although thousands of people have watched Ms. Wynn perform intimate acts, she admitted to extreme nervousness when accepting her trophy, an opaque rectangle with the image of a man and woman intertwined.

"Speaking in front of people is hard," Ms. Wynn said, cradling her award, called the AVN.

The 23rd AVN awards presentation here was a campy mix of Hollywood cliché and X-rated clips watched with 3,000 of your closest friends and industry insiders. The acceptance speeches tended to be brief, befitting a film industry with little emphasis on dialogue.

The program highlighted that pornography is, at least in a sense, at a crossroads. The sex-film industry shows signs of gaining some mainstream acceptance -- spurred in part by its leading diva and business success, Jenna Jameson -- and it is reporting record sales. According to AVN Publications, which organizes the awards, it generated $4.3 billion in sales and rentals last year. That amounted to about half the size of Hollywood's box-office receipts of nearly $9 billion last year.

At the same time, prospects for the industry have been tempered by fears that the Justice Department is poised to add to a handful of obscenity prosecutions recently brought against makers of hardcore films.

Saturday night, though, was an unapologetic, hearty celebration, with a flashbulb-drenched red carpet entrance and awards presented in 104 categories, including best performances in a wide range of explicit acts and sexual positions. The more conventional were for best director, supporting actor and actress, screenplay and the most anticipated award of the evening: best feature.

That went to "Pirates," a relatively high-budget story of a group of ragtag sailors who go searching for a crew of evil pirates who have a plan for world domination. Also, many of the characters in the movie have sex with one another.

Evan Stone, the stage name of the man who won the award for best actor as the good ship's captain, said a crucial component of the movie's success was its authenticity. A consultant instructed the cast on proper ship etiquette, he said, like never letting the captain steer the vessel, a job that belongs to the first mate.

"Take the sex out of this movie, and it's Walt Disney," said Mr. Stone, who declined to give his real name.

The precise criteria for winning an AVN are not, well, explicit. About 60 reviewers judge some 6,000 films submitted throughout the year. Paul Fishbein, the president of AVN Publications, said you know a good acting and sex scene when you see one.

Still, certain things rule out a nomination. One is "if you can still hear the director's voice," Mr. Fishbein said. Another no-no is "if it's clear the cameraman is not paying attention."

The industry seems to have a sense of humor about itself, but there is an awareness that many Americans disapprove of their trade. Savanna Samson, who won an award for best actress, said in her acceptance speech that "most of my family is pretty ashamed of what I do."

"The bikini models hate the topless dancers, the topless dancers hate the nude dancers, the nude dancers hate the adult-film actors," said Stormy Daniels, 26, who won an award for best supporting actress. Ms. Daniels, who said she wished people would stop judging one another, does have her own pet peeve: tired plots.

"There's nothing worse then when the pizza boy rings the doorbell, the girl says she doesn't have a tip, and then they get it on," she said. Ms. Daniels also won an award for best screenplay for a parody, "Camp Cuddly Pines Power Tool Massacre," which presumably had a storyline more in keeping with her tastes.

When the night began, starlets paraded past more than a hundred photographers. The divas said they had agonized over what to wear. Tanya Mercado, 31, whose stage name is Gina Lynn, wore a strapless black gown from Nordstrom, bought after she had rejected two others as not fitting quite snugly enough.

Not everyone makes a big deal about the awards. Even Ms. Wynn, a winner, said in an interview the day before the ceremony that she had trouble remembering one of her sex scenes that was nominated.

"What's the movie called?" she asked, trying to distill just one title from the 150 movies that she said she performed in last year. A few moments later, it came to her -- "Too Hot to Handle" -- whose plot she described as two women who wear the same outfits and then have sex.

Unlike "Pirates," which has a high production value and is meant to appeal to both women and men, Ms. Wynn's film is in many ways more characteristic. More than 90 percent of the movies are called "gonzo," meaning they have little or no plot.

Steven Hirsch, chief executive of Vivid Entertainment, which made the award-winning "Devil in Miss Jones," said the awards could help market films to distributors and really bolstered sales.

Not all fans pay attention to awards, though. Ian Thomas, 34, who sells real estate in Las Vegas, said before the ceremony that he picked pornographic films based on his favorite female performers.

"If I want acting, I'll go to a mafia movie," Mr. Thomas said.

Correction: January 11, 2006, Wednesday An article yesterday about the awards ceremony for the sex-films industry included erroneous information from AVN Publications, the program organizer, on the name of one award-winning film by Vivid Entertainment. It is "The New Devil in Miss Jones," not "The Devil in Miss Jones."